Saturday, March 04, 2017

French right-wing party National Front leader Marine Le Pen attends a
press conference in a restaurant on January 27, 2017 in Denain near
Lille, France / Getty

Just in case you missed it, Le Pen’s parliamentary immunity has been officially revoked
by a show of hands in the European Parliament (EP). It is now confirmed
that this is because of Le Pen’s tweets more than a year ago:

“the French judicial authorities have requested that
the immunity of Marine Le Pen, Member of the European Parliament and
Chair of the Front National (FN) party, should be waived in connection
with proceedings relating to the posting on her Twitter account, on 16
December 2015, of violent images showing the murder of three hostages by
the terrorist group Daesh, together with the comment ‘This is Daesh’,
following an interview broadcast on RMC in which a comparison was drawn
between the rise of the FN and the activities of Daesh (…)“

In the end, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) decided to
recommend waiving Le Pen’s immunity based on the consideration that:

“although the images posted by Ms Le Pen can be
accessed by anyone via Google and have been widely reposted on the
internet since they appeared on her Twitter account, it is beyond
question that their violent nature is likely to undermine human dignity.
Their publication therefore warrants the opening of criminal
proceedings.”

Without commenting on the merits of this consideration, it is
convenient to know that JURI attaches so much weight to criticising IS.